Dennis Chitwood wrote:
....from R.L. Darling
Mr. Chitwood,
I have been following Rick Stitts misadventures for over a year now.
I have a RotorWay Exec and a Helicycle helicopter and have two friends
with Mini-500's that have the Stitt touch on them. One has had the
re-built cones and transmission and the other has the tranny mods
done.
I've read a bit also. And would very much like to learn more. I'm
trying to find information about it. Every time I ask, I get no answers
or just emotional angry responces, not facts...
Near as I can tell, there was a major "buisness" fall-out, and Rick
Stitts, Bill Phillips, Randy Culver, Dean Fetters, Ken Armstrong, and
Fred Stewart, and Joe Rinke seem to have all been involved. When ever
any of those names comes up, there is more emotion and anger than facts.
I am NOT trolling, but I am very aware this is a troll topic.
I am seriously trying to study if a Mini-500 can be rebuilt to be safe
(defining "safe" in context of experimental aircraft, which it itself is
a tough thing to say).
The first ships owner is Mr. Wayne Qualls....he is a knowledgeable
pilot
and has done his own turbine conversion which has proved successful.
I
know that he would like to talk to you about Mr. Stitts so he won't
mind
if I let you have his phone number....he too has been bamboozled out
of
thousands of dollars that he can not afford.
The number is xxxxxxxxxxx...this is in Irving, Texas and believe
me....he will welcome your call.
I would be happy to call, because I am considering a Mini-500 Turbine
conversion. And I promise, I'm just trying to figure this thing out. I
just started reading about it 2 weeks ago, and haven't found much about
rebuilding.
Thanks for the incoming comments. We need to stop this guy before
people start dying again. Stitt's turbine startup sequence is WAY
wrong. His method will cost you $$$$$ in turbines , as his method
guarantees hot starts, or a least unnecessary high temps.
D. Chitwood
N500XT
I believe, althought I could be wrong, that I read on Rick Stitt's site
that he has found that the hot starts are not the way to go, and he has
explained himself turbine starts should be done diffrent. To quote his
website:
"This is a Turbine T62-2A being installed into a Mini 500. The radiator
area has be converted to a main fuel tank.
The first conversions done for a mini were direct drive and had one
starter to drive the main rotor system and the engine during the start
cycle. This system did work but many of the customers didn't like the
EGT going over 1300 or 1400 deg F during the start cycle.
The next logical step was to install two starters in parallel. This
reduced the start temp to 1190 during the start cycle.
The Turbine really likes to be started with no load and the following
information is how we reduced the start temp to 650 deg F. with hover at
800 deg F."
Further, Stitt's site has a comlete list of all the fatals in Mini-500s,
and I have read the reports there as well as 9 fatals in the Mini-500 on
the
http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB site. (I also read the reports of all 7
fatals in RotorWay Exec's there, but they happened over a longer period
of time). I can not find numbers of RotorWay Exec kits sold, I know
about 550 Mini-500 kits were sold. I can find no real answer to how
many of either of these kits were ever built, or how many hours people
have logged in them. MUCH LESS on Turbine Conversions.
I'm honestly just trying to research this before I buy, build, or
rebuild anything. My big conserns are the weight limits, and the 210
lbs seat limit of the RotorWay, and the 220 lbs seat limit of the
HeliCycle are holding me back from going that direction.
Any information you or anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated
by me at this point. Good, bad, about RotorWay, HeliCycle, Mini-500, or
anything, I don't care as long as the information is factual, not
emotional or trolls.
For referance, here are some good and bad things I have found about the
Mini-500 (other than Stitt's site):
http://www.moneypit.net/~pratt/ambuilt/helicopter.htm (it may be better
to just read NTSB reports insted?)
http://www.kitplanes.com/features/su.../mini-500.html (more
politics and buisness than air-worthy-ness)
http://yarchive.net/air/mini500.html (I found some interesting things
here, and would really appreciate if someone could explain the "RHCI
puts a fixed elevator on the horizontal stab which is deflected down to
compensate for a positive pitching moment in forward flight as the MR
system pumps air down." statement to me, I'm really new to learning
about helicopters in general, and haven't even begun my flight training).
Again, I'm looking for any and all information I can get, hopefully with
explinations not just flames.
Thanks in advance.